“ But perhaps the oddest of all the Dutch etiquette is that concerning the paying of calls. It seemed so odd to me to find the members of a family have each their separate visiting list. Daughters never make calls with their mothers. The moment a girl is out of the schoolroom she has cards of her own, printed in the objectionable style, which never succeeded here,—
Rosetta van der Welde.
She has her own friends, and makes her calls with scrupulous regularity, never omitting to pay a visit on birthdays, when every lady holds an afternoon reception. ”

“ There is a great lack of chivalry in the manners of a Dutch gentleman. He displays none of that sentiment which the French embody in these words, Place aux dames. I do not altogether blame the men for this deficiency in what we should consider good manners, for I think to a very great extent the women have themselves to thank for it. There is much that is absurd and prudish in their etiquette, and yet they permit slights, and even impertinences, which an Englishwoman would never overlook. ”

“ They succeeded very politely in smothering their laughter, though it must have been amusing to hear my frank opinion, and I, still keeping my back turned, began an animated discussion with Troide, who hovered about just outside the door, as if I had been in a den of lions.
"Come in," I urged, in a whisper. "Sit down; they won't eat us. Why should they want even to look at us? Come in, and don't be so silly. It looks far worse running away than sitting down and behaving yourself quietly, like a gentlewoman." ”

“ I often used to amuse myself by watching behind a curtain, to see every second man take off his hat to the window, it being quite immaterial whether any of the family are visible or not; and every second lady make a polite bend of the whole body, not a mere inclination of the head, as our ladies do. Everybody bows. Men take off their hats to each other; tradesmen do the same to all their customers. A well-known lady is bowed to by all her father's, husband's, or brothers' friends, and any gentleman knowing a lady is staying at a house where he visits, will bow to her. ”

“ In accordance with the roaring-lion idea, a lady must not pass a club. She must, if she has to pass down a street where there is one, cross to the other side, and, if necessary, cross back again. In winter this becomes a great nuisance, for there is much wet weather and roads are very muddy, but no Dutch lady of high class will brave the obnoxious windows, though she will allow the very men who are sitting at them to smoke in her drawing-room without an apology. ”

“ Then, too, a Dutch lady outside her own door is always acting on the defensive, and tacitly guarding herself, as it were, from any possibility of insult. She behaves as if men were her natural enemies, going about like roaring lions, seeking to gobble her up alive-o. I must say that I have never seen any disposition on the part of the men to simulate the rôle of the wild beast aforesaid, unless the lady happened to have a large dot. The first thing I noticed in Holland was that gentlemen walk on the pavé and ladies turn into the road ”

“ I was staying with a family who were certainly known by every one in the town; people whose position was so perfectly assured that I should have imagined they would be rather above certain trivialities of etiquette, which, to people of less social eminence, would be all-important. ”

“ I never saw a Dutch man or woman — not even one who was a countess in her own right, and ought to have been a good example — eat straight away with a knife and fork as we do. They first cut the whole plateful into pieces — a most disagreeable process — then lay the knife on the edge of the plate, farthest away from the eater, and resting the left hand, loosely folded, on the table beside the plate, eat all with the fork, shovel-fashion. ”

“ It is the fashion, if a lady take young ones out for a promenade, if gentlemen walk with ladies, or if two girls walk together, to go to a confectioner's and eat taatjes, ices, or drink chocolaat. For this purpose all confectioners have one or two rooms adjoining their shops, furnished with little tables, sofas, and chairs. If several ladies go into such a room, where there happen to be one or two gentlemen, they rush out as if they had seen a ghost. ”

“ This lady copied my method of eating my dinner from the first time I dined there, and made her children do the same. The last time I was in Holland I found they still kept up the custom.
As regards the other meals, they consist of breakfast, koffij and supper. They are prepared entirely by the ladies of the house, and are exactly alike, except that there is tea at two meals — breakfast and supper — and coffee at the one which bears its name. Breakfast is early — from eight to nine — and often visitors are privileged to have it in bed. They always ask if you prefer it so. ”

“ Perhaps the etiquette which differs the most from ours is that of the table. I cannot say I like it. No Dutch people live in as good a style as we do. I only know two houses where the table is pleasant to look at — one that of an enormously wealthy shipowner at Rotterdam, the other that of a very wealthy professor. ”

“ Husbands and wives make formal calls together, usually on Sunday, between koffij and dinner; and, by-the-by, I may as well mention here that, on being shown into a drawing-room, it is not etiquette to help yourself to a chair — you must wait until your hostess begs you to take one, a custom which, if she happen to keep you waiting ten minutes and you are weary, becomes rather trying.
On New Year's Day (and I believe on Christmas Day also, but I will not be sure, for I have only once been in Holland at that season) all young people call at any house where they have been invited during the year. ”

“ I noticed many points of that kind which they could not explain beyond that "such a thing is etiquette."
I never saw food eaten otherwise. Sometimes glass rests are provided for each person, and very, very necessary they are, for never is a change of cover provided. I never saw such a thing at a friendly dinner, and once I was at a large evening party where I met some very grand people, and saw a supper of thirteen courses served with one knife and fork and two spoons for each person. ”

“ If, however, the young lady has friends in the town who are strangers to the family where she is visiting, they call and are received by the guest alone, and thus does she return the calls. Even a very young lady may accept invitations quite independently of her hostess, and dine out several times a week, the mere mention of the invitation at the time being quite sufficient. ”

“ I was once staying in a country house, where I created a positive sensation by simply asking a young man to be so good as to fetch my scissors from the adjoining room — I had my lap full of work, which I could not lay down. ”

“ Servants do very little waiting in Holland, because in very few houses are more than two kept — two and a man are enough for people of noble birth — and then there is so much scrubbing and washing done. ”

“ I do not say that it would be good for girls alone to go into a room where there were half-a-dozen scatter-brained students drinking absinthe, but why a lady, the wife of one of the first men of the town, cannot take her daughters into a shop because there are a couple of gentlemen sitting at a table talking quietly does puzzle me. ”

“ She sets the tea-caddy handy, or if it must be coffee, grinds up with a little hand-mill a sufficient quantity for the meal. Then she gets the butter-pot, which is a deep, round pot of common delf, with a lid. It is filled to the brim with butter, and emptied, not by cutting, as we do, but by each person scraping out, with his own knife, as much as he wishes to use for each piece of bread he takes. ”

“ Everybody bows — nobody nods, and touching of the hat is unknown. You bow to every one you may have met when calling on a friend, for callers meeting are introduced. You give an order to a gardener or a workman, and he takes off his hat with a bow which would not bring discredit on a duke. Everyone bows on passing a house where they visit. ”

“ I remained five weeks a guest in the same house with him and I taught him, amongst other trifles, that it is polite for a gentleman to allow ladies to leave the room before him — that it is a delicate attention to offer to turn the leaves of their music, and that it is better not to smoke when they are singing. ”

“ There is not, however, the slightest fear of their being mistaken for a married couple, for they sit hand-in-hand, not furtively, as we sometimes see young and foolish people do here, but openly and with a good deal of ostentatious display. ”

“ I answered, "but only on condition that if you get into the room and there should be any one there you do not rush out as if a mad dog was after you. It is positively lowering to let a man see you run away from him as if he wished to eat you." ”

“ And they have another singular fashion: as soon as a young lady becomes engaged, she has to march the unfortunate man round to all her friends, and introduce him with a speech as her future husband, and a very pleasant process it must be for him. ”

“ The ladies of the town will not even pass down it. I was walking once with the wife of a professor, a woman of very high standing, and quite above most of the little, prim restrictions to which others yielded, but she would not pass along the Line Maart even when hurrying home late for dinner, and that the nearest way. ”

“ They take exhaustive notes in the study of the human eye, they bill and coo — I use the term literally — and then they get married and — drop it! It is perfectly wonderful how soon, too, the wife develops into an upper servant, and the husband, from a dozen endearing names, sinks into plain "Smit;" ”